


Poetic Justice

by busaikko



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bad Poetry, Curses, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-28
Updated: 2007-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-30 15:44:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/333357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus is cursed.  Remus is a curse-breaker.  This can't bode well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poetic Justice

**Author's Note:**

> Betas: aunty_marion and islandsmoke

_I need to see you. Come at two._

Remus frowned at the note. The handwriting was Severus', certainly, as was the imperious tone. The idea that _Severus_ , of all people, _needed_ to see him. . . well, that was ominous, to say the least. Remus chewed on his thumbnail thoughtfully: it was dreadful, he knew, but that no one witnessed one's repulsive habits was one of the advantages to living alone. He spent the rest of the morning either rummaging through his wardrobe for an outfit that said _I'm much better off without you_ or combing his personal library for all the counter-curses and counter-jinxes that he would likely need to survive the encounter. He was completely satisfied with the results of neither pursuit: no matter how well he dressed, it would not hide the signs of the disorder he had inherited from his mother (his doctor blamed lycanthropy for its premature onset); and no matter how well-versed in curses he was, they would be of little help with the fundamental problem of Severus.

It was quite typically Severus that the note hadn't included an address. Remus assumed he was in the same mouldering Doncaster dust-trap, but didn't want to risk the Floo in case it had been disconnected. He hated Apparating: it made his hair curl in a way that suggested he was too poor to own a comb. Or so Severus had often said. Remus sighed: he would get nowhere today if even the memory of Severus got under his skin. He took a few deep breaths, fixed his mind on Severus' front porch, and felt himself squeeze through the ether like paste from a tube.

Severus had the door open immediately and yanked Remus inside with a scowl.

"Yes, lovely to see you again, ages it's been, I'm fine, and yourself?" Remus snapped, twitching his arm out of the talon-like grip. Now his second-best set of business robes was wrinkled down one arm – and his hair had gone off as well: he couldn't see his fringe anymore, likely because it was kinking horribly. Somehow, Severus always had this discombobulating effect on him. Remus cocked his head and looked at his inhospitable host. Severus wore his old teaching robes: they draped him elegantly and gave his irritated pacing an aura of menace. Remus dropped into the stuffed chair by the fireplace, trying not to remember that – for a space of time – it had been _his_ chair.

"You still do curse-breaking, I hear," Severus said. "As you did last year."

Remus blinked and tried not to feel anything about Severus keeping track of him. Likely it was only out of self-interest. Jilted lovers in the Wizarding World could prove very hazardous to the health. . . . He narrowed his eyes and studied Severus.

The man had dark shadows under his eyes, and his colouring and lank hair suggested that he wasn't taking care of himself again. The years after the end of the war had been good for Severus: he'd left Hogwarts for a high-powered research position – rumour had it he was doing consulting for the government on the side. The Wizengamot had cleared Severus' name in the first few months after Voldemort's downfall. It had taken a little longer for Remus to be able to forgive him, but he had, even to the extent of living here for a very tumultuous six months. Remus hadn't seen him look this haggard since the days of the Order.

"Have you a curse in need of breaking, then?" Remus asked, trying to sound nonchalant. Once the seed of the idea was planted in his head, however, he studied Severus with an impartial, professional eye and catalogued the symptoms. A curse seemed highly likely, and cast on Severus, not the house or any object within. Remus raised an eyebrow.

"I have to talk in rhyme," Severus said, and Remus had the feeling that Severus was struggling to keep his hair-trigger temper under control. "All the time. I had a bit of a. . . confrontation with a. . . a man, and he did it before he left. I've done what I can," Severus added quickly. His upper lip twisted. "He said it was poetic justice." Severus held the sneer for a moment, and then his expression melted into alarm.

Remus saw his shoulders tense, and then his right hand rose as if on marionette's strings and began to claw idly at the already raw skin on the underside of his left arm. Remus watched in mild horror. He took out his wand and did a few simple diagnostics. The curse was admirably crafted. Remus wondered how long Severus had tried to lift it on his own before he'd been forced to summon help. Severus' identity was very much tied to his intellect and his ability to batter people with it, and the curse crippled that. It was wonderfully cruel, Remus thought, watching Severus' feigned disinterest as his nails drew blood.

"Trust is," Remus suggested. "Dust is, lust is. Caesar Augustus."

"Fuck Caesar Augustus," Severus said, and bit back a sigh as he pulled his hand away.

"I'll ask some questions – can you answer with a yes or no?" Remus asked, taking out his Dicta-quill and notepad and setting them up on the coffee table. He needed to keep a clinical distance or otherwise he'd feel sympathy for Severus, and that could all too easily lead to other, more treacherous, feelings. Severus nodded, once, terse, and Remus told the quill _yes_. He leant back and steepled his fingers. "Can you write without rhyming?" Severus shook his head. "Do you have to _think_ in rhyme?" Severus shook his head sharply, and then widened his eyes in mock horror. "Oh, definitely," Remus murmured. "The easiest solution would be to approach the person who cast the spell."

Severus scowled his disgust at this idea.

"I assume – and correct me if I'm wrong; I'm asking because I need to – that the person who cast it was a lover?" Severus gave an unreadable stare, and Remus glared back. _You treated **me** appallingly, but **I** at least never sank to your level_ , he thought, not caring whether Severus read the thought on his face or in his mind. "It would help to know more about him – where he studied and with whom." A sudden suspicion assaulted Remus. "He's not a professional curse-breaker, or an Auror, or – " Severus' face turned a nasty mottled colour and he looked away. "Oh, lovely. Well, I suppose I should be flattered that at least you respect my _professional_ skills." Remus saw Severus' jaw shift, as if he were literally biting his own tongue.

_I will not indulge in petty baiting, I will not – especially as Severus is helpless –_

Remus blinked.

"You can't do verbal magic, then, either," he surmised, and Severus shrugged in discomfort. "What did you _do_ to the man? I'm dying of curiosity, you know."

Severus dropped into the other chair, which was angled so as not to face Remus' straight on. "I'd heard that, too," Severus said. "Is it true?"

Remus stretched his legs out and crossed his ankles. "I've not made my peace with the world yet," he said, infusing the words with enough warning that Severus should be able to figure out that all was not forgiven. "I've years before the degeneration becomes crippling. Or fatal. It would be a bad precedent," he added, leaning forward very slightly to make sure that Severus saw his smile, "for you to be sorry, by the way. There's too much between us. If we _started_ expressing regrets, we'd drown. Besides, I can't think of a good rhyme for 'sorry'." He held Severus' eye a moment longer – something he'd learnt from the werewolves – and then looked away deliberately. "But I'll help you. I do love a challenge."

Severus watched him with suspicion sparking in his eyes, but Remus was used to that. Then Severus' shoulders slumped and he opened his mouth. Remus held up a warning hand. "If you say 'thank you' you'll have to follow up with 'spank you' and that's a bit forward, you'll agree."

Severus snorted. "You still have a foul sense of humour, I see. But I do appreciate your helping me." He paused, an extremely uncomfortable look on his face as he shifted in his chair. "I didn't ask you here as a favour, you know. I'll pay your outrageous fees. You've no idea how much I hate sounding like the pap on the radio."

"Nice one," Remus said, and handed Severus one of his basic contracts with his rates written in bold calligraphy on the back. He did charge a lot, but he was damned good at what he did. "I'll go ahead and bill you the extra for an off-hours, out-of-office consultation, then."

Severus looked grimly appreciative. "Where's the office and when are your hours?"

Remus had the quill dash off a memo and noted Severus' hand start to inch back towards his wrist. "When you come, bring me flowers," he suggested.

"No fucking flowers." Severus yanked his hand back and glowered at it. "There is a hell and I'm in it. I honestly don't know that I can stand another minute." He tugged the cuff of his robe down to cover the scratches. "I am glad you didn't laugh."

"Half, graph, staff. Giraffe?"

"Not a surprise to me that you didn't think of _naff_ ," Severus said, and reached over to flick at the sadly creased fabric of Remus' sleeve in a manner that was insulting yet somehow desperate.

_If only he weren't so lost and needy under all the guff_ , Remus grumbled to himself, catching Severus' hand and holding it firmly. If they had still been lovers he might have brought Severus' hand to his cheek, might have turned to press a kiss to the crease where Severus' life-line frayed. But they were not lovers, not even friends, so he gave Severus' hand an encouraging squeeze, let go, and summoned his pocket diary to set up an appointment (in-office during his regular hours) for the following day, despite the next night being the full moon. He didn't feel any desire to draw out Severus' suffering. And besides, it was an interesting problem.

He had to go into the Ministry the following morning anyway to see a man about his bleeding walls, so it was simple enough to wave his pass and spend a pleasurable hour with rare curse tomes in the library before taking the lift down for a vile cheddar and sweet potato sarnie in the cafeteria. He shared a table with several Weasleys and a few former students, all of whom were happy to share in the latest gossip. He didn't dare ask for rumours of Severus Snape's love life in such a public forum, but afterwards, walking the Weasley girl back to her cubicle, he managed to collect a few promising leads. He _had_ half wondered whether Severus had cursed himself; he wouldn't have put it past him; but Severus apparently had a weakness for dangerous men.

He got home at half three and left the Floo on. There was just enough time to comb his hair and put the kettle on before his alarms sounded. He waved them off as he hurried to the front room. Severus was brushing himself off irately; he gave Remus a sharp nod in lieu of greetings.

Remus realised he was still holding the tea towel. He decided to go with the domestic motif and asked Severus to join him in the kitchen instead of in the small, dark room he usually used for work. He didn't have to ask how Severus liked his tea: he knew well enough to add two spoons of sugar and a wedge of lemon. He took the tin of biscuits down from the shelf, dusted it surreptitiously with the towel, and set it down on Severus' side of the table. He had moved into this flat after the disaster with Severus, and he could see Severus' eyes cataloguing the familiar furnishings in the unfamiliar setting.

"There are a few things I'd like to try," Remus said, and summoned some tomes from the office.

After a gruelling hour of tests and trials which left Remus' kitchen in sad shape, Remus looked woefully at the empty biscuit tin. He always fasted before the change, and sweets were contraindicated whilst he was taking Wolfsbane, anyway. Severus waved to get his attention and then curled his fingers and thumb into a 'c'. Remus narrowed his eyes in incomprehension. Severus stabbed one finger at the sky through the kitchen window.

"No, no, there's yet time. Do you want anything more for tea?"

"Sitting across from your hungry eyes has quite dampened my appetite." Severus' fingers twitched: the curse apparently thought liberties were being taken with the rhyme. He hurried on. "I won't linger over tea, don't want you eating me. Are you going to be all right?"

Remus ignored the question, flipping back through a beautifully illustrated book he'd stolen from Black's ancestral home. "I didn't think McIntyre's generic countercurses would be efficacious, but I'd no idea they'd give you limericks."

Severus shrugged, his eyes sharp.

"At least your rhymes don't have to be rude anymore." Achieving that small victory for decency alone had taken nearly twenty minutes.

"Small mercy," Severus muttered, then ground the palms of his hands into his eyes in frustration. "This is intolerable, Lupin."

"You could drown your sorrows in gin," Remus suggested. "Be glad you didn't use Remus – the only thing I can think of that rhymes with _that_ is – "

"Do you honestly not know where to begin? I'd never have thought verse a good torture or curse. I feel like bloody Hester Prynne."

"Who?" Remus asked, baffled enough to pull his nose out of the book and stare at Severus.

"Muggle girl with a scarlet letter she had to sew on her sweater as a sign of her sin. I admit I have been, to my lovers, deserving of no better."

"Fascinating," Remus said, biting down on one knuckle until he felt able to control the mad laughter that threatened to leak out. "I still can't see what you could have done to merit this."

Severus tapped the book with an impatient finger, and then flicked the finger at Remus' forehead in a reprimanding gesture that was, unmistakably, _idiot_.

"You used to start to feel the moon," Severus said a minute later, interrupting Remus' note-taking again. "Starting in the late afternoon."

Remus shut the book with a snap and rubbed his temple. He needed to get reading glasses: the strain of focussing on the text gave him a dreadful headache these days. Trust Snape to remind him that all his muscles were starting to contract and that the familiar ache was building in his bones.

"Even with Wolfsbane, my body still . . . anticipates," Remus said. Severus rolled his eyes like commas and pirouetted one finger in the air, then pointed at Remus' chair. Remus blinked. "No – no, I wasn't hinting," he added hastily.

"It's the only relief I gave you, I believe," Severus said. "Remember that day in June?"

"It wasn't June," Remus said, standing to reseat himself backwards in the chair. He crossed his arms over the chair back and lay his cheek along his forearm. "But I appreciate the constraints of your art form. There's one last spell I'd like to have a look at, I think it might do some good." He heard Severus stand and the scuff of shoe leather over the floorboards; one of Severus' hands, warm and heavy, squeezed his shoulder while Severus reached around and pressed a finger over Remus' mouth.

"Right," Remus sighed. "Shutting up, now."

He let Severus take him apart with meticulous care, and then those same strong hands put him back together without the constant ache from tense muscles and the bones they shoved out of place. He was surprised that Severus had remembered this, much less offered. It did make the change easier to bear if he were relaxed, and right now he was so relaxed he was nearly asleep.

"It must be nearly time," Severus said, finally, his hands stilling over Remus' lower back, and Remus sat up, blinking and stretching. "For you to turn lupine." Remus twisted about in his chair, wondering whether the curse would approve the dubious rhyme. Severus rubbed his nose but didn't scratch, and Remus grinned. He still didn't quite have a firm grasp on the structure of the curse, but he had been able to diminish it significantly – despite the irruption of limericks. He got up and carried the tea things to the sink.

"I think Ng's Corollary might work on your rhyme schemes," he said, turning and leaning back on the counter. "But Planar's eighteenth esoteric might be more comprehensive. . . Curse-breaking's not elegant, you know," he added. "Lifting a curse is like unravelling knitting. Breaking it is like chopping at it with shears until the weave no longer holds. Even with the curse successfully broken, you might occasionally break into couplets."

"It's a risk I'll take, if the curse you can break. Can I come back in the morning at nine?"

"Merlin's arse, no. I don't do consultations on the day after – as much for my clients' sake as my own. No one needs someone drug-addled and sleep-deprived casting potentially lethal spells. Unless the limericks turn naughty again, or you develop sonnets, fever, or rash, Wednesday morning would work much better."

Severus scowled; Remus said nothing, merely gave him what he thought of as his non-stick smile.

"Then I'd better be on my way. I'll borrow these books if I may?" Remus waved his hand in a 'help yourself' gesture: saner mind or not, the wolf was never going to have a use for books other than as chew toys. Severus' face tightened more. _And what would you do if your face froze like that?_ Remus could hear his mother's voice saying – she had never understood Severus. "Even with the Wolfsbane, are you still in pain?" Severus' dark eyes were blank, but Remus crossed his arms anyway. "I miss knowing that you are okay."

Remus felt his own face freeze before he could properly control his expression. "That I'm not ripping out throats in downtown Slough?" Severus jerked his head once in un-amused negation. "Ah. Well, I'd love to talk potion interactions with you someday. Not, unfortunately, now. There's no time. Don't worry," he said brightly, because he knew the word _worry_ would rankle. "The change won't be the death of me. I'll be here Wednesday." He waved Severus towards the Floo; the alarm clock on top of the drinks cabinet went off just as Severus took a handful of powder. Severus' resultant over-loud declaration of destination (Remus assumed that he'd be stuck in a limerick on the other end – _bend, send, forfend. . ._ ) caused a soot-devil to rise up and scatter ash all over the carpet. _Bastard_ , Remus thought, but he was still too relaxed to feel proper ire. The second alarm went off, and he had just enough time to shut the Floo off and lock the doors before the moon rose.

It wasn't a bad night. It wasn't particularly good, either. Remus came back to himself at moonset and crawled up the stairs to his warm, waiting bed, where he collapsed into a heavy and dreamless sleep.

Remus woke to the sound of someone pounding on his door loud enough to rouse the neighbours at the – he blinked through unfocussed eyes at the clock – ungodly hour of ten to ten. He grabbed the first garment at hand – pyjama shirt – glared at it for being useless, dropped it and grabbed the matching plaid bottoms. His whole body had seized up: it was incredibly hard to bend over and dress, and the knocking was as loud as ever. He had potions for the cramps; he swallowed a particularly nasty one which made his breath billow out red, and then headed down the stairs.

"You," he said, trying to sound glacial and forbidding. It didn't work, or perhaps Severus yearned for colder climes; he stalked into the front room, the air stirred by the sweep of his robes curling against Remus' bare stomach. "Go home," he said, holding the door open.

Severus snapped his wrist down, and the door flew from Remus' fingers as it slammed shut. "home i have none, nor rest nor peace nor calm – my restless orbit is but a falling towards you and ne'er shall there be shelter from the cyclone."

"Fuck," Remus said. "I didn't do _that_. Merlin in paisley, you're talking in pretentious free verse now. Captivating, in a terrible train-wreck way." He stared hard at Severus and began smiling: a tight, angry smile. "What did you do to yourself? There's a reason curse-breakers are licensed, you know – it requires a degree of skill and knowledge. Being able to come up with new curses, by the way," he added, "doesn't imply an aptitude for curse-breaking. Rather the contrary."

Severus silently – aside from the volumes said by his expression – handed him a sheaf of parchments. Remus glanced at the first page and snorted laughter at the mishmash of words crossed out and the bizarre spelling and capitalisation. The second page was no better: Snape referred to himself as _i_ and to Remus as _u_. Remus couldn't bring himself to look at the following pages: he was too close to hysterical mirth as it was.

"i will," Severus said, tying to fight the pauses that inserted themselves dramatically after key phrases, "rip your guts out your nose. . . and laugh. . . as you die. . . slowly, slowly."

Remus brought his face under control – _professional_ , he thought, _must remain professional_ – and crossed his arms. "Are you sure you're not doing really badly translated verse? Are you thinking in Russian, perhaps? Or Spanish?"

"i'm _thinking_ – " Severus snarled, and then spun to slam his fist into the corridor wall, which shattered into great shards of painted plaster. Severus kicked at them with vicious satisfaction.

"It'll be all right," Remus said, which was the stupidest possible thing to say, he suspected. The curse seemed to have spread to Severus' brain and he was going mad; and Remus wasn't sure what the next step was. Severus rounded on him, hands still in fists, and Remus compounded his stupidity by grabbing Severus in a rough embrace that turned into a kiss. They took turns pushing each other against the wall all the way down the corridor, fighting for dominance. Remus stumbled backwards onto the stairs and that settled it: Severus had his pyjama bottoms off in a moment and his own robes open. He pressed down and Remus shoved up hard: the steps were wooden and bit cruelly into his still-sore flesh.

"Do you want – i want – tell me – " Severus said, his face suffusing with annoyance as the words twisted.

"Fuck me," Remus said. "Fuck me in _two_." He was not one for dirty talk, but neither was Severus the type to spout poetry.

Severus shoved his wand into Remus' hand: at any other time, Remus would have been touched by the implicit trust in the gesture. But he knew it was merely expedient now. He said the sex spells carefully, letting his tongue curl around the words and watching as Severus' eyes darkened. He cast a quick non-verbal cushioning charm on the stairs for his own comfort and raised his arm to place Severus' wand on the step just behind his head. He knew the pose was teasing: Severus made a noise deep in his throat and pushed Remus' legs up. No amount of cushioning could have made his gravity-impelled descent onto Severus' cock any more comfortable, and he tried to squirm his muscles loose. Severus was looking at him impatiently, and Remus unclenched his jaw to mutter, "I haven't done this since you kicked me out, you know."

"Ah," Severus said, but he wasn't compelled to gentle his assault, although he did kiss Remus, hard and harsh, and let Remus claw at his back when the world threatened to unravel. Severus was damn good at this, Remus recalled, trying to push up against Severus and get some friction on his aching cock. Severus smiled – a wicked, terrible smile that made Remus' breath catch and then start again frantically – and leant back, folding Remus' knees over his shoulders and, after an anticipatory pause during which Remus braced his hands against the step behind him, commenced a battering assault that made Remus forget that there was any difference between pain and pleasure.

Severus came shouting Remus' name, his whole body tensing and shaking, the grip of his hands on Remus' hipbones bruising. Remus panted up at him, wanting with a desperation that nearly drove him to beg; but Severus was pulling out, as sharp a pain as penetration had been, and then Severus bent over Remus' cock. He felt each hair that swept across his shaking stomach; his body jerked with every warm breath that Severus blew across his sensitive skin. The first circle of Severus' tongue around the head of his cock wrung an unformed curse from his mouth that subsided into helpless whimpers as Severus held him down and sucked. It took him hardly any time to come, not with Severus hollowing his cheeks between his thighs and the blunt tip of Severus' tongue restless up and down his length. Severus pulled back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and watched Remus through narrowed eyes.

"Give me your wand," Remus murmured, finally. Severus's stare was cold and calculating. "Bloody hell, I'm not going to kill you or curse you. I just need a few charms so I can walk upstairs under my own power." Severus scowled but reached up for the wand, and then passed it to Remus. The first spell Remus cast stopped his hands from shaking; he had hoped to hide that from Severus. Ah, well.

"That's a bad habit to fall into," Severus said. "Any healer will tell you that those charms take a worse toll on you in the long run than the symptoms they repress." Remus was about to snap that until the curse was lifted Severus was reliant on Remus' swish-and-flick. . . and then it dawned on him that Severus was not talking in verse.

"You appear to be cured," Remus said, his voice sounding flat and distant to his own ears. Thoughts were firing in his head like fireworks on Chinese New Year. "What was the condition to lift the curse? Did you have to have sex? Kiss a werewolf?"

"I might have said your name in bed," Severus said, off-handedly. "More than once, or so I was told. There was a bit of a row, and he said – "

"That you should go fuck _me_." Remus' voice was hollow like a well. "Get out of my house."

Severus studied him. "You are remarkably good at breaking curses," he said. "I did think that, if I couldn't persuade you to sleep with me, you stood an excellent chance of getting the curse off anyway."

"Out," Remus hissed, realising that he was clenching Severus' wand nearly hard enough to snap it. The urge to curse was far too tempting. He threw it hard, aiming for the nose; if he hadn't been so tired, he thought, he might have scored a hit. Adrenaline was nearly as good as potions for quick bursts of false energy: he pushed himself to his feet, yanking his pyjama bottoms up as he stood. "I don't want to see you again. Ever."

He wished he had the strength to see Severus out the door and also manage the stairs to bed, but he settled for turning his face pointedly away from Severus and climbing with his back ramrod straight. His hands were shaking again. Damn Severus, he thought, and heard the front door slam. Damn the man to hell. He sagged into bed and was asleep as soon as he had the duvet under his chin.

Remus woke when he could no longer keep the pain away with dreams, or when the dreams themselves became too painful to endure, he wasn't sure which. In any case, there was wakefulness and pain. He was curled on his side and his wand was just a few feet away, on the bedside table. He uncurled, swore, pushed himself up on an elbow, and stretched in a way that made the ladder of bruises the staircase had left down his back ache. His fingers slipped twice before he got a good grip, and he fell back on the bed.

He'd been thinking, idly, of going on holiday: this seemed like a perfect time. He thought about the Canary Islands as he healed what bruises he could, and considered renting a cottage in the French countryside as he summoned an analgesic potion from the washroom. Or perhaps Spain, or Greece. Or Australia. He grimaced.

Anywhere, really, but as far away as possible sounded very good right now.

On the heels of that thought, he heard footsteps on the staircase. He shot out of bed, wand in hand, to stand against the wall by the doorframe. The door was still ajar: he could see a shadow.

"Get back in bed," Severus said. "And stop trying to skulk."

"Come just a bit closer," Remus snarled, his voice thick with anger. "Oh, please." Severus didn't oblige, unfortunately, but he did stop, displaying a healthy wariness.

"You deserve better than me." There was a rustle of robes, and Remus could picture Severus crossing his arms defensively. "I know that."

" _No one_ deserves you," Remus snapped. "I gave you fair warning to get out of my house. I am not merciful to trespassers."

"I need you," Severus said, and Remus bit back the sort of laughter that, in the wrong company, would have him sent to a closed ward.

"There are, apparently, plenty of people willing to fuck you," he said, when he had himself under control. "I myself don't mind the sex. But I am too old and too weary and too damned dangerous for these twisty, twisty games that are all you ever seem to play. This fellow who cursed you – he's just your type."

He heard Severus sigh, and then the click of Severus' heels as he approached and then entered the door.

"You look – " Severus started, and then jerked his head towards the bed. Remus cocked a sardonic eyebrow and shook his head. "I need you," he said again, and Remus had to admit – despite his resolve to be mature, to not sink to Severus' level – that it was a fine thing to watch Severus squirm in the morning. "Not for sex. I need you because you balance me. We are alike, you and I."

"In the sense that oil and water are both liquids, yes." Remus sighed. "You don't trust me. You don't feel that I should be given the facts and allowed to make my own judgements and decisions. Do you recall why you sent me packing?" Severus looked away. "I sang a _song_ , Severus, in the _bath_."

"It was a song about leaving a lover."

"And not a fucking hint that _I_ was going to leave _you_ , you idiot – and certainly not something that should have triggered you taking pre-emptive action and kicking me out!" Remus took a few deep breaths. "You sank my trunk, with all my personal mementos, in the South Pacific somewhere. I don't even have one picture of my own parents anymore. Because I sang a song in the bath." He shrugged. "I won't live with the constant need to censor myself for fear of what you might possibly think. How could I sleep in the same bed with you at night without fearing what might be going on in your warped mind? I'm tired of fighting. I'm done with war. Give it up. Leave me alone."

"You're dying," Severus said.

"I look forward to it, if it'll get me away from _you_ ," Remus snapped, and watched the colour drain from Severus' face. "Oh, for fuck's sake. Not for years and years. You remember how long my mother held out."

"I don't want to want you," Severus said, such discomfort on his face that the lines stood out like ripples from his nose. "I can't stand the idea of losing you."

Remus snorted. "Are you sure that's not just because you've not yet found a good replacement?"

Severus' eyes met his: something deep inside his gaze burnt. "Listen to me," he said, his voice raw. "I care about you. I want to be something to you, in the time you have left."

"Besides the thorn in my side?"

"Yes," Severus said.

"Because you love me."

"Yes."

"You know I don't love you back."

"Yes."

"And you're capable of changing – of not fighting, of trusting."

Severus paused; the pause grew louder, but Remus would not help Severus with this. "I don't know."

"What would you say, if you were me, right now?"

"I'd tell you to fuck off," Severus said, his face neutral. "If I knew as many untraceable – or unliftable – curses as I'm sure you do, I'd probably use one or two."

Remus sighed and summoned his dressing gown. He shrugged his arms into the sleeves but let the belt hang. Severus took a step forward, reached out, and whipped the belt into a snug knot with three precise motions. He let his hands drop, but didn't step back.

"You said you'd not made your peace with the world," Severus said. "Don't make your peace without me. That's what I want."

Remus sighed. "I want someone to hold me, someone to convince me that everything's going to be all right. That's what _I_ want. But I can live without. Would rather live without, than with any perversion of those desires." He didn't realise he was biting at his nail until Severus pulled his hand away from his mouth. Blood welled from where his teeth had worried the flesh; Severus used his own thumb to wipe blood away from Remus' lip.

"Are you still angry?" Severus asked, eyes shuttered.

Remus cocked his head, giving it some consideration. "Yes."

"Good," Severus said. "You don't waffle when you're angry."

"I'm rather ruthless, in fact." Remus shoved his hands in his pockets.

"Ruthless is better than apathetic," Severus said, voice so low it hardly carried. "Don't give up. I need to know. . . that you're still alive and fighting."

"I won't live with you again," Remus said, his voice hard and inviting no arguments. "And I'm going to be angry with you for a while yet."

Severus leant forward and placed a tentative, almost shy, kiss on Remus' mouth before stepping back. "I made scones for tea," he said. "I saved a few for you. You're out of marmalade."

Remus smiled despite himself. He still, sometimes, found himself wanting romance of the flowers and candlelight variety. But if there was one thing he'd learnt in all his years, it was that sometimes you got love, and sometimes you got Severus.

the end

**Author's Note:**

>   
> **Soundtrack**
> 
> Placebo – Pure Morning  
>  _A friend in needs a friend indeed, A friend who bleeds is better_
> 
> Flogging Molly – Devil's Dance Floor  
>  _Well swing a little more, little more o’er the merry-o  
>  Swing a little more, a little more next to me _
> 
> Streetlight Manifesto – The Saddest Song  
>  _And it's the saddest song you'll ever hear_  
>  The most pain you will ever feel  
>  But you grit your teeth because it don't get better that this (know this)  
>  And you'll try to explain as the blood leave all your veins  
>  And you can't think of anything that you would change
> 
> Peggy Lee – I'm Gonna Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair  
>  _If you laugh at different comics, if you root for different teams,  
>  Waste no time, weep no more, show him what the door is for.  
>  Rub him out of the roll call and drum him out of your dreams._


End file.
